Install & Run Chromium OS on a MacBook Air

If the prospect of installing Mac OS X Lion isn’t your thing, you can try running Chromium OS on the MacBook Air instead. Chromium OS is the open-source version of Google’s Chrome OS, which is an operating system based almost entirely around the Chrome browser – you boot directly into a browser, and that’s basically it.

All hardware works with the exception of Bluetooth, but all the brightness, sound, trackpad, WiFi, and it is said to install on both the MacBook Air 11″ and 13″ models, and possibly even nVidia based MacBook and MacBook Pro’s. The major caveat? You lose OS X, so don’t expect to dual boot here.

We haven’t tested this ourselves and you’ll want to be sure you backup Mac OS X before proceeding because it’ll be overwritten. If you’re brave enough to give this a try, you’ll need a compatible MacBook Air, a 2GB+ USB stick, and the Mac OS X USB Installer key that comes with the MacBook Air.

Once it says it’s finished (basically when it says X bytes copied in Y seconds), hold down the power button until your machine switches off

Remove both your USB stick and the OS X install drive

Hit the power button, wait about 22 seconds

Enjoy

Anyone want to try this? I’m going to stick with Lion on my MacBook Pro, but this could be fun if a dual or triple boot option was easily supported. That won’t be coming from Hexxah at least, who specifically states that he won’t be supporting dual boot configurations, following that up with “don’t ask me for help with dual-booting this.”

6 Comments

Exactly! Why on earth would I want to do this to my Mac? I’ve tried Chrome browser and wasn’t impressed enough to keep using it, so what’s special about this? I don’t claim to be an expert at anything, so please understand I’m asking a question, not attempting to bad-mouth a product. I simply don’t see much value in this. If I’m wrong, please take a moment to tell me why. Thanks.